After seeing the monster largemouth bass my neighbor pulled out of our neighborhood 12 acre lake on a live crawfish, I’d like to see if they will hit a crawfish fly.
The lake is shallow with a deep growth of hydrilla? (maybe 1-2 ft deep) 2-4 ft under the surface, and some sort of plant that grows about a foot out of the water all along the shore, so I’ll be dealing with weeds. I’ll be fishing from my kayak. Which crawfish flies would be best for this scenario? What’s the best way to fish this fly? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
First off I’m going to go with the cheap answer. A weedless Wooly Booger in the color to match your local crayfish.
Secondly, most crayfish patterns tied commercially do not use weedguards. If you are going to tie your own flies make sure that the weedguard won’t ruin the action of the fly (If the fly is supposed to ride point up, but the mono weedguard is too heavy, your fly will ride point down.)
A fly that rides with the point up probably won’t be too much help against weeds since you should fish your fly right on the lake floor. Remember that you may lose a few flies in this environment so don’t tie a pattern that takes too much time.
( I spend too much time on alomst all my flies. How ironic that I usually fish the flies that were the fastest to tie!)
Warmouth
[This message has been edited by Warmouth (edited 08 August 2005).]
I have been a big believer in crawdad fishing. But every time I tie one to ride hook down, it ends up riding hook up. If I want it to ride hook up it rides hook down!
They need to be fished on the bottom. Use full sinking lines, sink-tip lines, sinking leaders, or really heavy flies to get down there (depending on the depth of the water nad thickness of the grass). Real crawfish flee backwards with quick flicks of their tail, so short quick strips with short pauses every couple of strips is my standard crawfish immitation retrieve. If you’re using a floating line, the pauses are especially important to keep the fly on the bottom. Crawfish don’t swim a foot under the surface in three feet of water!
Perhaps you can chuck and dodge a realistic plastic crawfish from Bass Pro Shop. We had some in a plastics swap earlier this year where weight was tied in near the eye, a couple of balls of thread were put on the shank then superglued to the plastic with the hook coming in upside down into the crawfish head. I haven’t had time nor opportunity to use it yet. A possibility. There are some very good crawfish flies out there, though. JGW
I’ve fished crayfish pattern’s in a lot of water types, and know of a lake thats very weed choked.But I limit my non floating fishing there to weed edges and channels.
Have doubts you’ll penitrate weed growth very well, But, Full sinking lines and very heavy flies does seem your best effort…
I’d suggest looking for thin spots and trying to fish vertically,Let your fly drop and sit on the bottom…Some shakeing of the rod might be nessasary to accomplish this feat, Then give it a few jerky pumps and let it settle back down, On a taught line so you might feel any strikes on the fall.
Does’nt sound very enjoyable, But I wish you well anyway, Let us know how it works out.
“I’ve often wondered why it is that so many anglers spend so much money on,and pay so much attention to.the details on the wrong end of the fly line.If they took as much care in selecting or tying their flies as they did in the selection of the reel and rod,They might be able to gain the real extra edge that makes it possible to fool a fish that has,in fact,seen it all before” A.K.Best